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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Vacation Bible School Devotional Day 5

Day 5: Bible Point: Jesus gives us the power to tell others about God.Power Verse: “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.” Mark 16:15Bible Story: The Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost. Acts 2:1-47

“I might say the wrong thing.” This phrase keeps coming up when we talk about sharing Jesus with everyone. It’s funny, but sometimes it doesn’t take words. I read this really good book once – actually I read it waiting for the birth of my first child, Z. It’s called The 5 Love Languages of Children. You can get it in lots of different versions, but this one worked for me. What I learned is that words may not be everyone’s main mode of communication. Follow my thoughts here for a second.Jesus tells us to love one another. "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." John 15:9-12AHA! – So Jesus wants me to love people. I can certainly try that. Some days it’s not the easiest thing to do, but I can give it a whirl. Some times when I think I’m showing people I love them, they aren’t hearing it. We have a minor failure to communicate. That’s when I start going through the list of love languages and trying to match the person up to one of them. I keep trying until I find the way they can hear me. Jesus used lots of love languages when he was traveling and telling people the Good News about him. Some days he just flat out said the words, “I love you”, others he did an act of service. He was certainly trying to show us that there are many ways to show people that He loves them.So then Jesus tells us today’s Power Verse - “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.” Mark 16:15. Hum…. Love people, tell people….. Those are pretty simple instructions that come at a big price. How are we supposed to tell people when it’s so hard to talk to them. Jesus tells us how to do that. First off we only have the power to tell people about Him if we do it through Him. We are just his mouth piece. Jesus needs us to be a living presence of Him in our communities so that people can experience his love through us. Then Jesus is really cool and shares specifics on how he did it in a certainly unbelieving world. Jesus gives us parables, and the Gospel gives us real life examples of Jesus at work out in the mission fields. Jesus tells us, shows us, and calls on us. Great teaching model from the best teacher I know.Knowing this you now have the giant big secret of how to share about Jesus with others. Live as He did. Look in your Bible for examples, and just be open to Him doing the work through you. Here’s something you may not have known – you’ve been doing this all week with the kids at VBS. Keep up the good work, and try it on a friend!

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